Opposition to Health Care Measures Outspend Any Other State Propositions

Campaign spending against two measures on the California ballot exceeds the spending by the top ten contributors for or against any other state proposition in the November election. Both Propositions 45 and 46 deal with medical services.

Health insurance companies have spent more than $55 million trying to defeat Prop. 45, which would give California’s elected insurance commissioner the power to reject a health premium increase that he or she finds excessive or unreasonable.

About the same amount of money has been spent by medical liability insurers, physicians and hospitals to try to defeat Prop. 46. That’s the ballot initiative that would raise the cap on pain and suffering damages that could be awarded to victims of medical malpractice.

The top financial backers of the health care propositions – mostly attorneys and nurses - are spending about $3 million on each campaign – a fraction of what their opponents are spending.